3 Future-Proofing Processes

Forecast Your Financials

Forecasting your financials is a great way to look ahead for any future struggles. This should be done monthly at the very least, but we encourage it to be done weekly. This doesn’t have to be anything elaborate, but should be an opportunity to identify any recent changes in amount of expected revenue (new sales or lost properties), when you are expecting to earn that revenue (depending on when the job will finish), and any new expenses, both direct (labor and materials spent on a job) and indirect (costs not going to a job: manager salary, PTO, office supplies, equipment repairs, etc.).
If you have open-book finances this is a great way to engage your employees in understanding the finances and their role in impacting them. You might include the in this weekly forecasting exercise or have them bring data relevant to their department.
By doing this weekly, you can easily identify if things are on track, or perhaps an unexpected cost has come up so you might tighten the hold on purchases that can wait to make up the difference.

Build Out Your Backlog

Having a clean backlog allows you to see how much work you have scheduled and how much more you can take on right now. If it is full now, don’t turn work down! Schedule it out in the future to fill up your slow season. This is also a tool that benefits clients. If you are working to your backlog, clients should have a defined start date, and you can update them with any changes. Most importantly, having a great backlog allows you to predict future cashflow.
We cover this topic more in depth in a recent blog. You can read it here.

Create a Hiring Bench

No matter if labor is scarce or you have a full team hired, you should continue to recruit for all your positions. This allows for quick turn around when an employee exits the company. As we discussed in a recent webinar, the average cost to replace an employee is 60-90% of their wage, after recruiting, hiring, training, etc. By continually recruiting for positions, you are cutting that cost down.
Often times, your clients are left feeling the impact of a staffing shortage. It takes longer to get the job done and things get missed because your team feels rushed. Being able to hire quicker also help with customer satisfaction.